Community Medical Centers has joined the Premier healthcare alliance. As central California’s largest healthcare provider and private employer, Community will collaborate with nearly half of the nation’s hospitals to improve the quality and cost of care.

A new owner of the alliance, Community will benefit from the scale of Premier’s , which generates more than $5 billion in savings each year. In fact, the health system saved $2 million initially upon joining Premier.

“Community is excited to partner with Premier to overcome the challenges of this reform environment and lead others in adapting to the changing nature of care delivery with innovative solutions,” said Mr. Jack Chubb, CEO of Community Regional Medical Center.

The locally owned nonprofit system will integrate data across its nine network facilities including three acute-care hospitals, as well as a physician residency program in conjunction with the University of California, San Francisco. Community will use clinical and operational improvement intelligence in ™ – healthcare’s largest integrated technology platform and online social community.

Premier Chief Operating Officer Mike Alkire said, “We all know about the problems in healthcare and their root causes. But being able to share openly with others, tinker with those problems and build upon success creates the power to initiate meaningful change. We welcome Community as a Premier owner and look forward to discovering, sharing and spreading great ideas that can improve health across the alliance.”

Comprising more than 2,800 acute-care hospitals and 93,000 non-acute care sites, Premier focuses the power of collaboration at a national scale. Alliance members make up the largest aggregation of hospital group purchasing, uniting providers to deliver the highest quality and most cost-effective care to patients.

Community will participate in Premier’s (Accelerated Supply Chain Endeavor) program of more than 320 hospitals aggregating, monitoring and analyzing supply chain data and spend. In addition, Community Regional Medical Center has joined nearly 340 hospitals collaborating to accelerate the adoption of best practices industry-wide to enhance national care standards in the performance improvement collaborative.

The system will also use PremierConnect apps to compare and benchmark patient-level clinical and financial data with providers across the alliance, including:

A first in the industry, PremierConnect links healthcare providers across the nation with patient data, evidence-based best practices and each other. The scope of intelligence on the platform enables data-driven decisions that save lives, remove waste and help coordinate care delivery. PremierConnect houses the nation’s largest outcomes database with information on 1 in 4 U.S. hospital discharges, from 2.5 million real-time clinical transactions daily and more than $40 billion in annual purchases.

Community Medical Centers is a locally owned, not-for-profit, public-benefit organization. Based in Fresno, Calif., Community is the region's largest healthcare provider and private employer. The organization operates three acute care hospitals – Community Regional Medical Center, Clovis Community Medical Center and Fresno Heart & Surgical Hospital – six other health care facilities and partners with the University of California, San Francisco in a physician residency program. .

Premier is the nation’s largest performance improvement alliance of more than 2,800 U.S. hospitals and 93,000 other sites using the power of collaboration and technology to lead the transformation to coordinated, high-quality, cost-effective care. Owned by healthcare providers, Premier operates a leading purchasing network with more than $5 billion in annual savings. Premier also maintains clinical, financial and outcomes databases based on 1 in every 4 patient discharges. A world leader in measurably improving patient care, Premier has the largest performance improvement collaboratives in America, including one in partnership with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Premier also has an office in Washington. . Stay connected with Premier on , , and .